


between the lines

by grandstander



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Modern AU, Slow Burn, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29594985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandstander/pseuds/grandstander
Summary: There is little Sylas knows about his best friend's brother, other than that he seems just as stuck up as every other spoiled rich kid. At least, that's what he thinks, and that's what he's been sure of since he and Lux became friends when they were teenagers. Sometimes, though, gilded cages are only that: gilded, and still cages.It seems he'll have to teach more than one Crownguard how to break their chains.
Relationships: Garen Crownguard/Sylas, Luxanna "Lux" Crownguard & Sylas
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello! long time no see. 
> 
> it's been a while since i've done a fic. i've had quite a few wips in the works for honestly years, but it's been slow going to finish them. recently, though, i got a lot of inspiration and ideas for a modern au and i ended up planning out a decent chunk of this au. i want to try and write it into a fic! long chapter fics aren't typically my style but i want to really, really try to do this one. i hope you all enjoy! this fic will be a labor of love for me. please leave comments, kudos, and bookmarks if you enjoy this work. they encourage me a lot!
> 
> usually when i write, i listen to songs on repeat. i think it'd be fun to tell you all what songs i listened to while writing each chapter. this chater, i only listened to one song on repeat though. this chapter's song is sweet talk by saint motel.

“ _Uuuuuugh_.” 

Sylas is startled awake with a rather undignified snort when the rickety picnic table he had been napping at shakes, evidently because Lux had decided to drop the rather tall stack of books she was carrying. She followed her books not long after, dropping down onto the bench of the picnic table and resting her chin in the palms of both her hands ( all in a dramatic fashion, of course ). Sylas rubbed his eyes before he leaned against his curled fist as well, raising his eyebrows as he watched his friend drop down into an exhausted slump. 

“That bad, huh?” he asks, a lazy smile spreading on his lips as he spoke.

Lux’s cheeks were squished up near her eyes, leaning completely forward against the shabby wood table top of the picnic bench. She heaved a rather deep sigh behind her hands in reply, her lips pushed together in a comical expression that was similar to one a person would make when entertaining a child. Despite his best effort, a half-hearted chuckle rumbled in the back of Sylas’s throat as he watched her nearly pout after the long day of classes Lux had. 

“It wasn’t _that_ bad,” she finally answered with another sigh, “I’m just tired and fussy.” 

“Like a little baby,” Sylas teased as he reached across the table and nudged her elbow. 

“Hey! I’m not a baby!” Lux rose from the slumped posture she had fallen into, though her expression still resembled a pout as she puffed out her cheeks at him. She was making a show of being huffy, Sylas knew that very well, and though he laughed at her little act he still felt a touch of remorse for teasing her. 

“‘m just messin’ with ya’,” he said, again nudging her elbow and offering a fuller, apologetic smile. “I know you work really hard on your studies. You’re the top of your class for a reason, Lux. It’s okay if you’re a bit exasperated.” 

Despite how much she looked annoyed with Sylas, Lux nearly immediately softened as Sylas spoke to her. His voice grew gentle as he consoled her, validating the exhaustion that had creeped into her during the middle of the semester despite how she had tried to downplay it minutes before. She smiled warmly at him and laid her arm out in front of her, her hand coming to rest on her best friend’s forearm and squeezing it gently. 

“Thank you, Sylas,” she said, a little softer, in a voice that was more genuine and closer to her heart. Lux held his gaze for another moment, then sighed once more and turned to the stack of books she had checked out from her campus library before coming to hang out with Sylas. 

“Oh, I meant to tell you,” Lux begins to say as she pulls two books from the stack, one on top and another closer to the middle. The covers of the two books could not be more different; one, an artistic rendition of a rainbow of colors breaking through trees into a prism, the second, a much more simplistic book with a red cover, gold cursive lettering, and the black silhouette of a wreath underneath the title. “I checked out that book you mentioned to me from the library for you.” 

Sylas’s features fell to a subtle hint of surprise as he took the book, the faded blue of his eyes reading over the gold letters as excitement bubbled up in the pit of his stomach. “You didn’t have to Lux,” he says as he looks up, “But thank you… I appreciate it a lot. When is it due back?”

“Two weeks, I think. I’ll have to double check, but I’ll do that later.” She settles back down on the bench and sets a bag with her various binders and notebooks all neatly organized within it next to her, pulling a small pink planner notebook from it. 

Her routine is familiar to Sylas at this point. She always lays her planner to her left to easily check all her reminders and notes about classwork easily, opens her textbook directly in front of her, and lays her decorated binder full of notes organized with notes and tabs to her right. Sometimes, Lux and Sylas will chat about her studies, sometimes they’ll talk about other things like her family or whatever may be leaving her stressed, but other times, the two of them will sit together in a content silence as they both read with only the sound of Lux’s pen scratching against paper between them. 

A soft hum rises from her as she works, a finger underneath a line of text that reads as gibberish across the picnic table to Sylas, and glances to her paper to write her notes in a flowy, pretty cursive. Her handwriting is so much neater than his. Sylas smiles as he watches her for a moment, her own happiness warming him from the inside until he felt as if he was sunbathing despite the cool autumn weather. He could not be more thankful to have a friend like Lux. How someone as kind and generous as her decided to stick to him despite how intimidating and frustrated he often appeared was beyond him, but Sylas chose not to question one of the very few good things in his life. 

“You seem like you’re enjoying reading that textbook.” 

“It’s the one for my favorite class!” Lux looks up from her book with a bright smile,her brilliant blue eyes glittering with curiosity and eagerness. 

“The one for your Optics class?” he asks. 

“Yes! We’ve finally moved into geometric optics which I am very fascinated by.” 

Sylas nodded, but in truth, he didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. His personal favorite studies tended to be philosophy and political theory, but he did humor Lux more often than not to listen to her talk about the scientific study she enjoyed so much. 

“I’m supposed to have dinner with Garen at his house tonight. Do you wanna come too?” Lux taps her pen against her chin as she remains smiling at Sylas. Since she was paused for the moment, she decided it was her best time to extend the dinner invitation. 

“Your brother? Are you sure he’d be okay with that?” Sylas asks, his top lip curling up slightly and his brows furrowing. He couldn’t say he necessarily liked the man, he seemed far too arrogant for Sylas to tolerate being in the same room for him for longer than an hour or two. For Lux’s sake, he tried not to speak poorly of Garen and grit his teeth when he was around him. 

Lux rolls her eyes at him and his visible muddled confusion and disgust, but it was quickly followed by another laugh and small smile. “I’ve told you before, he doesn’t mind,” she reassures him. 

“Sure doesn’t seem like it,” he grumbles under his breath as he folds the corner of the page he was reading to mark his place. As soon as the words left his lips, the sharp pain of Lux kicking him in the shin forced him to bite a groan down in his throat. He knew very well she wasn’t kicking him as hard as she could, but a kick there was a quick burning pain for anyone. Before he could bark back a retort to fuss at her, Lux beat him to the punch. 

“Sylas, I’ve told you before, Garen doesn’t mind when you come with me for dinner— _and I mean that_.” 

Despite being friends with Lux for years now, Sylas always felt like he was stripped bare every time he heard her voice become just the slightest bit firm. She was never harsh or cruel, simply firm but gentle, like a hand that held him in place but he could push away if he truly tried. Why would he, though? It was Lux who saw him in all his haggard, run down anger and ruin and still held her hand out to him anyway. 

Somehow, it always made him feel like a child all over again. 

“He really is a good person, I promise you. I know you don’t always believe me, but he really does care about me, which means he cares about the people I am friends with.” She smiled then, softer this time, laying her pen to rest against her textbook and reaching across the table to tap her finger against the tip of his nose. “And that includes _you_.” 

The flash of spitfire Sylas had felt moments before was quickly snuffed out, his anger deflating to merely a huff that fell into a deeper sigh. “Alright, alright,” he relented, if only for the sake of his best friend. “When are we going to head over then?” 

“After I’m done with this chapter. Garen doesn’t mind what time we get there.” Lux picked up her pen once more and started to resume her studying. “If you really don’t want to come though, that’s okay too,” she said in a quieter voice. 

“No, no, it’s fine. I’ll go. Whatever I think about him, he’s your brother.” After a pause, a grin slowly spread over Sylas’s face as he leaned over his philosophy book once more, passively unfolding the dog ear he’d made earlier. 

“Besides, it’s free food,” he said, “ _Can’t say no to that_.” 

That, at the very least, had Lux laughing, and her laugh always got him smiling no matter his mood.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! here's the second chapter. it's longer than the first so it took me a little extra time to finish it, but i'm happy and excited to continue this work. 
> 
> as mentioned before, i'll also share the songs i listened to while working on this. i listened to trying to be cool by phoenix and ghengis khan by miike snow. 
> 
> please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed the read! they motivate me a lot c:

Without the chance to argue, Sylas had found himself in toe with Lux and now bearing the weight of the copious amount of books she had carried earlier. It was those big blue eyes of hers that he could hardly say no to, looking up at him while she held her hands clasped in front of her and letting ‘ _Please_ ’ drag on far too long as she ever so innocently asked him to help her. Thus, Sylas found himself walking behind a little blond lady with a skip in her step while he carried a tower of books. He had half a mind to complain, at least gripe for the sake of it, but in all his effort to focus on not dropping Lux’s books on the damp sidewalk, he hadn’t realized that they were already at the door to her brother’s house until she rang the doorbell. 

The door opens to a tall man with strong, gently curved features standing behind it, his face as silent as ever. Everything about Garen seemed to irk Sylas, from the way his face looked as if he was carved from marble and thus was as untelling as stone, to the way he always spoke so evenly, so calmly, like steel that could not be broken. He was an embodiment of all the things Sylas hated about spoiled rich kids, acting like he was above Sylas, sitting lofty above his head. The man seemed to think he was too good to even hardly speak to his sister. 

“Garen!” Regardless of everything Sylas thought, Lux enthusiastically greeted her brother and threw her arms out and fell into him with the intent to hug him ( though that remained to be somewhat difficult with how tall Garen was ). “I missed you!” 

A barely noticeable smile graced her brother’s lips as he looked down at her and returned her hug, pulling her in tightly and leaning forward into her before he stood to his full height and welcomed them inside. “I missed you, too,” he returned, a quiet rumble in his chest that Sylas deciphered to be the older sibling’s laugh. 

“Hello, Sylas.” The stoic man offered him a greeting as well as Sylas passed by him when stepping inside his home, but he only offered a grunt of acknowledgement in return. At the very least, he was trying to be cordial with the man for his friend’s sake, and that sometimes was best achieved by holding his tongue. 

He dropped the stack of books rather unceremoniously onto the first table he found. They made a heavy thump when they met the wood of the counter top, and perhaps he should be a little more careful with all of Lux’s books, but his souring mood did not give him that forethought. The looming shadow of Sylas’s distaste for Garen was briefly slowed by the smell that greeted him when he arrived in the kitchen where the table was already set with dishes, silverware, and folded napkins. God, how pretentious can this guy get? Who the fuck folds napkins into shapes anymore? At least the food smells good and he wouldn’t have to pay for it. _Remember_ , he tells himself, _you are here for Lux and the free meal, nothing else_. 

Lux and Garen remain in the living room of Garen’s home exchanging words, a brief moment of privacy between the two of them. Lux excitedly updates her brother about her classes, all the things she’s done in the past two days since she’s seen him. Her brother remains silent, smiling gently as he looks down at her and listens in a content peace to all his dear sister has to tell him. 

“The LGBT org at my university is going to be doing some charity work this coming weekend, too. I’m definitely gonna go!” 

“I take it you will not be over this Sunday then?” Garen asks, still softly smiling at Lux as she talks. 

“No,” she answers, “But you know you can always come with me, Garen.” Lux looks up at him with her gentle, bright blue eyes, an encouraging smile on her lips as she nudges her elbow into his side. 

A good-natured laugh rumbled in her elder brother’s chest, but his features held a quietly mournful look to them. He felt hesitant, to say the least, a feeling shown only by the slightest shift of his shoulders tensing. “Thank you for the invitation,” he says, “But I do not have the courage to quite yet.” 

A quiet sigh leaves his sister in response, a little downtrodden that again her brother turned down her invitation, but she smiles once more to him nonetheless. “I understand,” she replies, placing her hand over his forearm as she rises to press a kiss to Garen’s cheek, who leans down to meet her in turn. 

When they join Sylas in the kitchen, the two siblings find him brooding all the same, a scowl carved into his sharp features and his arms folded over his chest. His legs are stretched out, one ankle crossed over the other and dirt littering the ground around his black boots. All in all, he looked agitated about being there, but so far he has not made his voice known. 

The dull blue of his eyes trail after Garen as he goes to the other side of his kitchen while Lux joins Sylas at the table, her eyes seeming to light up at the little makeshift sail boats the napkins had been folded into. Out of the corner of his eye, Sylas sees her picking the boat up and admiring it, but his attention remains transfixed to her brother and the… annoyingly pleasant curve of his ass. _It pissed him off so much_. Such a waste of a bubble butt on a pretentious, self-righteous asshole! He hated the way it swayed ever so slightly as Garen walked, the way his thighs seemed thick and strong with muscle, it made Sylas think and wonder about Garen, which he very much did not want to do. 

Sylas was mildly disgusted with himself when he felt a hint of remorse over not being able to ogle his ass when Garen turned around, a large platter and bowl held in each hand. Several dishes filled with food came to rest on the table, the aroma of delicious food beginning to overtake his sense of reason until he could not think about his appetite and his stomach growling. The sound was, apparently, loud enough for Lux to hear it and laugh in response while the same annoying half smile spread over Garen’s features. 

“I am glad you brought an appetite,” he says, attempting to speak in good humor, but Sylas only wanted to snap at him in response. 

“You should know by now he always manages to be hungry, Garen,” Lux jokes, still smiling and stifling her laughter. “Sylas eats so much! He’ll eat anything, too.” Her playful teasing continues as she leans in her chair to poke his stomach, Sylas grumbling in response. 

He doesn’t have the heart to tell Lux that he and his dad grew up so poor that at times they could not afford food. Most times, they had to make do with what they had. Quite literally, he could not afford to be picky about what he ate, when, or how often. It led to him being nearly voracious when he was presented with the opportunity to eat as much as he could. Sylas couldn’t quite let go of all those nights he went to bed hungry, or he and his father shared stale bread with peanut butter for a meal. It was like there was still this fear in the back of his mind that he might not have this opportunity again, that he and his father could lose the meager life they’ve scrapped together at any moment, and so he had to revel in whatever pleasure or enjoyment he could while it lasted. Oftentimes, that came in the form of a hedonistic love of eating anything that tasted good to him. 

“I’m just here for the free meal,” he grumbled, still displaying his annoyance and anger like it was a statement, like he wanted Garen to know he never intended to be here otherwise. He watches the man in question as he spoke, and still his words rolled off him like water rolling down a windowpane, his demeanor unphased and unchanged.

“Eat as much as you like then,” Garen answers him, and Sylas vaguely wants to bristle over how persistently kind Lux’s elder brother was. Did he think himself better than Sylas? Was he mocking him? He couldn’t tell, he didn’t understand, and those two facts together was what had Sylas so agitated with the man. It was like the whole damn world didn’t matter to him. 

In a silent fit of spite, Sylas takes one of the delicately folded and baked croissants he knows Garen made by hand and from scratch, and stuffs half of it into his mouth indignantly. His poor mood wavers only for a moment as he notices the light honey glaze, sweetening the taste of the bread and leaving a light smear of it on his top lip that he hungrily licks away after downing the croissant in only two bites. The image of Garen kneading the dough, stretching it, and meticulously folding it into careful, delicate shapes come to mind, the golden brown they must have been when they came out of the oven, and the delicate way those large hands of his must have brushed the honey glaze on them. This image of Garen in his mind was jarringly pleasant, enough so that Sylas bit his tongue in a stubborn effort to force it from his mind.

Who cares if he cooks well, if he bakes delicate pastries with careful hands, if he is never moved by Sylas’s anger. He certainly didn’t care. In fact, it annoyed him. It annoyed him so much, he was sure Garen was just being a pompous show off about it.

He didn’t care if Garen had cooked an appetizing array of food for the dinner Lux had invited him to. The plated grilled chicken didn’t move him, even if it smelled utterly delicious with an array of spices ( he could smell garlic, onion, paprika, and was the last one cumin? ). The chicken was a lovely golden color, darker marked lines indicating where they had laid while grilling,all complimented by laying in a bed of grilled vegetables. There was an assortment of broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, and chunks of potatoes with thin red skins that glistened with a sheen of butter and were hinted with a smell of garlic. 

All of it looked exceptionally delicious. The more Sylas smelled and looked at the dinner being served to him and Lux, he had a harder time convincing himself he didn’t care. 

Lux was quick to begin filling her plate with pieces of chicken, a pile of vegetables, and two of the honeyed croissants barely fitting on the edge. Garen’s smile remained as he joined her, finally setting a pitcher of lemonade on the table for their drinks. Knowing him, Sylas was sure Garen had squeezed juice for the lemons himself and probably used some pretentious, ‘organic’ sugar or whatever, but he didn’t care to ask. It was free food, after all. Sylas waited only long enough for Lux to finish getting food for herself to begin piling his own, stacking it high partially out of spite and partially because he was that damn hungry. 

Unfortunately for him, Garen only took it to mean Sylas enjoyed his cooking despite how abrasive he often acted towards him. It was a good sign, at least in his eyes. He remained just as content and calm as he always unwaveringly was and took only a modest amount of the food he had cooked himself. 

Lux led almost all of the conversation over the dinner table with small responses from both men, though comparatively less from Sylas than Garen. He used the excuse of stuffing his mouth full of food to abstain from talking more than he wanted to in the company of Lux’s brother. For her, he was making his best effort to be cordial with the man despite how much he loathed her brother for being so impassive to her suffering in their family. Garen remained quiet, his attention fixed to his sister, giving small answers and keeping Lux and her studies at the center of the conversation. He rarely spoke of himself, and when his sister tried to ask, Sylas noticed that Garen often only gave short answers or dismissed the question. It was as if he didn’t want to share anything about himself even with his sister, or maybe he didn’t want his sister’s delinquent friend to know anymore about him than he already did. Sylas wasn’t sure entirely, he was certain that there couldn’t be a good reason for it. 

Garen sent them both home with their own bags of leftovers from dinner, complete with a generous amount of the chocolate cake with whipped icing and strawberries for each of them as well. Sylas had attempted to refuse the offer on principal, but was forced to relent after Lux elbowed him in the side and gave him that somehow threatening smile of hers. All in all though, he would say he at least adhered to Lux’s request that he be _cordial_ with her brother.

“Why did he even ask me to walk you home anyway,” he grumbled as they left Garen’s house. Sylas carried their individual bags of leftovers while Lux’s arms were full carrying her textbooks and her backpack slung over her shoulder. 

“Because he worries about me too much,” Lux answers him, beaming and bright as well, with a skip in her step that wasn’t there before they’d visited her brother. 

“I just don’t get why he’d ask _me_.” 

“Because he also trusts you enough to look after me.” The smile Lux gave him when she answered him a second time was the kind that always made that bristling mood of his melt away from his shoulders until he was feeling tender and raw. “Even if you two don’t exactly see eye to eye, he knows you care about me, so he trusts you’d make sure I get home safe.” 

“Of course I would,” he says quickly, passionately. Lux was his best friend, she meant more to him than he could articulate. Few people gave him enough of a chance to really see him as a person, to treat him with respect; she was one of the few that always had. 

“Exactly, that’s why he trusts you,” she laughs, endeared by just how readily Sylas rose to reassure her. 

Sylas had little else to offer by a shrug, and though he still felt he did not quite like Lux’s brother, he could at least understand that reasoning. Or at least, kind of. He could never quite understand Garen. How Lux was always so insistent that he cared for her so much, yet when he saw them interact, the man hardly spoke much nor did he want to be open with his own sister was utterly beyond him. Regardless, he always did what Lux said Garen trusted him to do. Every night Lux invited him along to her dinner with her brother, Garen would ask him to walk home with her, and every night he would do so. Ultimately, that trust was not misplaced. 

He always helped her into her apartment, especially when Lux was more or less overloaded with textbooks and materials for her classes. Only when he was sure she was inside did he hand her the bag of food Garen had sent home with her. 

“Good night Sylas,” she said as she leaned up to the very tips of her toes to hug him, though he still had to bend his knees slightly to return the gesture. “I’ll be busy tomorrow, but I’ll see you the next day, alright?” 

“Same park bench?” he asks. 

“Yep!” 

A soft chuckle answers her as he pats her back and bids her good night as well, “Alright, alright, I’ll see you then. G’night, little light.” 

When he finally leaves Lux’s apartment, Sylas is forced to walk home in the silence of his own thoughts while carrying the weight of a bag full of food that was made with the intention of it being an act of love from a man he hardly feels kindly towards and a red hardback book about the philosophy of human relationships.

**Author's Note:**

> i will do my best to try to update this fic once a week. see you soon!


End file.
